Finally, there will be a public option in the health care reform bill. Harry Reid is responsible for putting it in. States will individually be able to opt out, but will do so at the peril of their constituents and their jobs. President Obama, while favoring a public option, never appeared to be too concerned about it. He never made it the be all and end all of health care reform. By means of this strategy he defused the harshest criticism and deflected the right's attempt to turn the debate into a pitched battle - the perfect rope-a-dope strategy made famous by Muhammed Ali who let his opponents use up all their energy pummeling him with blows that never found their mark. Don't give the opposition the ammunition it needs as there is nothing to fight against. I always thought that the public option would be slipped in at the last minute. Chuck Schumer deserves a lot of credit for coming up with it apparently just three weeks ago.
It is so much better than a trigger since it sets the status quo as the public option, and therefore, places the burden on the states to change it whereas the trigger sets up no public option as the status quo and places the burden on government to change it. State politicians will have to think twice about opting out if the public option is wildly popular among their constituents. Politicians still have to be democratically elected no matter how much money they take from the health insurance industry. Therefore, they will think twice about opting out of a popular program. We know which states will opt out - southern states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina - blue states, states controlled by the Republican party. At the same time some of these states are among the poorest in the nation and could greatly benefit from the public option. That should lead to a lot of interresting politics.
Just as some states rejected money from Obama's stimulus program thus denying their constituents much needed extended unemployment benefits and other help, these Republican governors and legislators will attempt to do the same with the public option. At some point though their constituents will probably rebel. Why should they stand idly by and watch their health care premiums go through the roof while in a nearby state people are enjoying the same benefits for much lower premiums? It really does put the Democrats in the cat bird seat and stand them in good stead for the 2010 elections.
But Obama would have won either way. If there were to be no public option, he could have still declared victory since he didn't make it a centerpiece of his campaign. Now he can declare victory because he always said he wanted one so he is getting precisely what he wanted. And he is on a roll thus enabling him to proceed with other much needed programs like a jobs program. There is still a way to go though. By all indications they are still a few votes short in the Senate although I don't think Harry Reid would have put it in there if he wasn't sure he could round up the remaining few votes.
But for now Democrats can rejoice. They finally had the balls to use their political power to do something the people wanted handing Republicans and the insurance industry a big defeat in the process. President Obama comes out with a tremendous victory also thus defeating all those like Rush Limbaugh who wanted him to fail. It's Obama 1, Limbaugh 0. The Republican blatherers and fulminators will have to take a back seat as well as all the lobbyists and pay off artists who attempted to use money to control the political process. Although they insisted the public option was dead, it turns out that it wasn't. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, methinks the Republicans protestethed too much, and Obama rope-a-doped them and the health insurance industry by not falling into their trap and giving them something that would have raised their hackles even more!
It's a good day for the Republic!
